Sunday, March 11, 2018

Big Picture Science for March 12, 2018 - Shell on Earth

ENCORE: We all may retreat to our protective shells,
but evolution has perfected the calcite variety to give some critters permanent
defense against predators. So why did squids and octopuses lose their
shells? Find out what these cephalopods gained by giving up the shell
game.

Plus why Chesapeake
Bay oyster shells are shells of their former selves. What explains the
absence of the dinner-plate sized oysters of 500,000 years ago, and how
conservation paleobiology is probing deep time for strategies to bring back
these monster mollusks.

Also, was the Earth
once encased in a giant, continental shell? A new theory of plate
tectonics. Land ho!

Guests:Rowan
Lockwood –
Conservation paleobiologist at the College of William and Mary.Al
Tanner –
Ph.D. student in paleobiology at the University of Bristol, U.K.Mike
Brown – Professor of Geology,
University of Maryland